What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[FunkMonk]

Should be fine; Argentina is in the same WC Group as Germany.

[Syt]

In the midst of the Trumpening, it looks like we're going to try and get my wife's brother up here and get him a green card.  Should be fun #omgchainmigration #anchorsister

When my sister got citizenship I looked into that. IIRC at the time they were looking at sibling green card applications that were filed 10 or 12 years prior. That number was twice as high for applicants from Mexico or the Philippines.

[jimmy olsen]

What a nightmare

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/exclusive-trump-admin-plans-expanded-immigrant-detention

Exclusive: Trump admin. plans expanded immigrant detention
03/03/17 08:13 PM—UPDATED 03/03/17 08:48 PM
By Chris Hayes and Brian Montopoli

The Trump administration is planning to radically expand the program and facilities for the detention of immigrant families seeking asylum in the United States, according to documents obtained exclusively by All In.

In a town hall with Department of Homeland Security staffers last month, Asylum Division Chief John Lafferty said DHS had already located 20,000 beds for the indefinite detention of those seeking asylum, according to notes from the meeting obtained by All In. This would represent a nearly 500% increase from current capacity.

The plan is part of a new set of policies for those apprehended at the border that would make good on President Trump's campaign promise to end the practice critics call "catch and release." 

"If implemented, this expansion in immigration detention would be the fastest and largest in our country's history," says Andrew Free, an immigration lawyer in Nashville who represents clients applying for asylum. "And my worry is it'll be permanent. Once those beds are in place they'll never go away."

Reached by phone, Lafferty said he was not authorized to speak on the matter. The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to a request for comment.

The plans for the expansion reflect the Trump administration's planned overhaul of U.S. policy for dealing women and children seeking asylum, thousands of whom continue to show up at the southern border fleeing violence, vengeance and sexual assault in Central America.

Under the plan under consideration, DHS would break from the current policy keeping families together. Instead, it would separate women and children after they've been detained – leaving mothers to choose between returning to their country of origin with their children, or being separated from their children while staying in detention to pursue their asylum claim. 

"How many human beings can look into the eyes of a mother or child seeking refuge and intentionally create this Sophie's choice?" asks Free.

According to the meeting notes, Lafferty also told staffers that the division has to commit more resources to border detention facilities, that officials plan to oversee facility expansion and the opening of new facilities, and that the division is currently working with Congress to get additional funding to pay for the expansion.

The plan, along with other changes made to immigration policy in the early days of the Trump administration, has caused controversy inside the Asylum Division of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is housed in DHS. A source inside the division, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of losing their job, said, "It's been one alarming thing after another."

The logistics of such a massive expansion of detention capacity could be a challenge. The majority of detention facilities are overseen by the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (recently rebranded as CoreCivic), and conditions in the facilities have been criticized by immigration lawyers as inhumane.

The largest such facility, the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, has 2,400 detention beds – and a record of lawsuits and complaints of neglect and mistreatment from immigration lawyers. When asked in the town hall about the ability of DHS to quickly build new facilities, Lafferty told the group, "We got Dilley up and running very quickly," according to the meeting notes. Lafferty said in the meeting that many of the 20,000 beds identified for use for family detention have already been located in existing facilities.

According to Texas Monthly, ICE is considering re-opening the controversial vacant detention center in Raymondville, Texas – known as "Ritmo" – which was shut down in 2015 after years of allegations of abuse and poor conditions. That facility was managed by another private prison company, Management and Training Corporation, which told Texas Monthly that ICE "is actively looking for new beds throughout the United States and they have expressed interest" in the facility. It is unclear whether the facility would be used for family detention if it is reopened.

It was precisely such a massive expansion of privately managed immigrant detention that Wall Street investors appeared to anticipate when, upon Trump's election victory, they sent the stock price of several private prison companies, including CCA, surging as high as 60%.

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/03/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts-mistake-oscars

Kellyanne Conway: 'alternative facts' was my Oscars blunder

Senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway has said her defence of "alternative facts" was a mistake that she has not been allowed to "brush off".

In an interview scheduled to be broadcast on CBS Sunday Morning, the senior White House adviser compared her remark, which she said was a conflation of "alternative information and additional facts", to the error last weekend that saw the Oscar for best picture given to La La Land instead of Moonlight.

Her experience under fire from the media, she said, had taught her women must have "bile in your throat" if they are to run for office or be involved in national politics.

Conway has been at the centre of several successive news storms since Donald Trump's inauguration on 20 January. First, she said in a TV interview that when Trump press secretary Sean Spicer repeated falsehoods about inauguration crowds and protests across the country, he was presenting "alternative facts".

Conway was later criticised for repeated references in interviews to "the Bowling Green massacre", a supposed terrorist attack in Kentucky that did not occur.

Then Conway gave an on-camera recommendation of products sold by the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, which the Office of Government Ethics said breached rules and which led to a White House rebuke.

Asked by interviewer Norah O'Donnell about the now infamous "alternative facts" episode, which many critics seized upon to illustrate the Trump White House's facility with dishonest or misleading statements , Conway said she had simply spoken in error.

"Well," she said, "it was alternative information and additional facts. And that got conflated. But, you know, respectfully, Norah, I see mistakes on TV every single day and people just brush them off. Everybody thinks it's just so funny that the wrong ... movie was, you know, heralded as the winner of the Oscars."

Asked whether she would consider a run for office herself, she said: "It's not just the fire in your belly anymore. You have to have the bile in your throat. And this is why I think many women do not run for office. Many good men and women who would."

O'Donnell interjected: "Bile in your throat?"

"Yeah," Conway said, "just to swallow so much, that the country looks at you through this negative lens, you know corruption and cronyism and 'You're lying' and 'You want money and you're motivated by power.'"

CBS also said the interview, which was filmed at Conway's home in New Jersey, included comments from George Conway, her husband, who has been touted as a pick for solicitor general.

Conway also discussed the "triple standard" she was held to as a conservative woman, CBS said. []

In an appearance last week at the CPAC conservative conference in Maryland, Conway said in remarks critical of the Women's March and other protest movements it was "difficult to call myself a feminist in the classic sense, because it seems to be very anti-male and it certainly is very pro-abortion in this context and I'm neither". []

She added: "One thing that's been a little bit disappointing and revealing and that I hope will get better is it turns out that a lot of women just have a problem with women in power."

Revealing, really?

A political pollster by profession, Conway joined Donald Trump's campaign for the presidency in August, as his third person to oversee his campaign after the departures of Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort. She previously worked for the Texas senator Ted Cruz, the runner-up in the Republican primary.

Conway was widely credited with imposing a measure of discipline on the erratic campaign, leading some observers to christen her as "the Trump whisperer". She was also credited with finessing Trump's message to white suburban women and for demonstrating an ability to navigate political interviews.

If anything would make her leave the White House, Conway told CBS, it would be her four children.

"They're having the hardest time with this," she said. "They're great kids, but they're really the worst ages for a mom to be ... away from them, 12, 12, eight and seven. And 24/7 secret service protection is tough for them. It's tough for them to think about when I'm away from them and why does she have that.

"This is all new for us," she added. "This is not something I sought. I'm not a famous person on TV."

I didn't seek this, I just chose to join the media circus that is the Trump administration.

Conway said her children were " struggling because it's just different to not have a mom there as much as they're used to even though I've always worked. This is an entirely different level."

Conway said she was monitoring what her children saw about her online. Trailing the interview, O'Donnell said she asked Conway whether she thought Saturday Night Live, which has lampooned the adviser and her feuds with the press, had gone too far in its depictions of her. The network did not say how Conway answered.

[jimmy olsen]

"They're great kids, but they're really the worst ages for a mom to be ... away from them, 12, 12, eight and seven. And 24/7 secret service protection is tough for them. It's tough for them to think about when I'm away from them and why does she have that.

Was shocked by this, thought she was too old for kids that age. Turns out she's only 50, would have guessed at least another 5 years.

[celedhring]

The Skeletor face makes her look older than she really is.

[Tamas]

In the midst of the Trumpening, it looks like we're going to try and get my wife's brother up here and get him a green card.  Should be fun #omgchainmigration #anchorsister

Oh the hypocrisy is delicious.

[celedhring]

In the midst of the Trumpening, it looks like we're going to try and get my wife's brother up here and get him a green card.  Should be fun #omgchainmigration #anchorsister

Oh the hypocrisy is delicious.

White immigrants don't really count I guess.

[garbon]

Trump has tweeted that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower prior to the election.

[Syt]

Trump has tweeted that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower prior to the election.

He better have proof for that.

[The Brain]

Trump has tweeted that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower prior to the election.

He better have proof for that.

Why?

[Tamas]

Trump has tweeted that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower prior to the election.

He better have proof for that.

Why?

Exactly. From this moment it is Republican canon.

[derspiess]

In the midst of the Trumpening, it looks like we're going to try and get my wife's brother up here and get him a green card.  Should be fun #omgchainmigration #anchorsister

Oh the hypocrisy is delicious.

I've always favored legal immigration, with a preference for the more easily assimilable.

[Berkut]

Yeah, that is not hypocrisy at all.

[CountDeMoney]

In the midst of the Trumpening, it looks like we're going to try and get my wife's brother up here and get him a green card.  Should be fun #omgchainmigration #anchorsister

Oh the hypocrisy is delicious.

I'm sure derfetus has found a nice local white Christian adolescent to marry off to him.